Plan S in Latin America: A precautionary note

Abstract

Latin America has historically led a firm and rising Open Access movement and represents the worldwide region with larger adoption of Open Access practices. Argentina has recently expressed its commitment to join Plan S, an initiative from a European consortium of research funders oriented to mandate Open Access publishing of scientific outputs. Here we suggest that the potential adhesion of Argentina or other Latin American nations to Plan S, even in its recently revised version, ignores the reality and tradition of Latin American Open Access publishing, and has still to demonstrate that it will encourage at a regional and global level the advancement of non-commercial Open Access initiatives.

Impact of Transformative Agreements on Publication Patterns

“…It has been previously recognized that TAs may be more feasible in Europe, as many European countries have nationwide consortia and a more centralized approach to licensing and negotiation (Earney, 2017). Scholars in South America and Asia have been vocal about the negative impacts of Plan S and its focus on TAs (Debat & Babini, 2019;Funamori, 2019).…”

Understanding Author Choices in the Current Conservation Publishing Landscape

“…Transformative agreements, including Read and Publish agreements (financial agreements between academic institutions and publishers whereby researchers can publish open access without charges), aim to shift the financial burden of publishing from authors onto institutions. However, currently, these agreements reinforce existing inequities as only the most well-funded, most-resourced academic researchers are able to contribute to the scientific conversation (Debat & Babini 2019). Neither these agreements nor waivers aim to change the status quo of commercial publishing models which prioritise profits over scientific dissemination (Debat & Babini 2019;Byrne 2024).…”

“…However, currently, these agreements reinforce existing inequities as only the most well-funded, most-resourced academic researchers are able to contribute to the scientific conversation (Debat & Babini 2019). Neither these agreements nor waivers aim to change the status quo of commercial publishing models which prioritise profits over scientific dissemination (Debat & Babini 2019;Byrne 2024).…”

“…At their best, Read and Publish agreements can restrict publishing options for authors by limiting which journals the institution will cover. At their worst, Read and Publish agreements limit who can contribute to the scientific conversation to only the most well-funded, most-resourced academic researchers (Debat & Babini 2019). Neither these agreements nor waivers aim to change the status quo of commercial publishing models which prioritise profits over scientific dissemination (Debat & Babini 2019;Byrne 2024).…”

“…At their worst, Read and Publish agreements limit who can contribute to the scientific conversation to only the most well-funded, most-resourced academic researchers (Debat & Babini 2019). Neither these agreements nor waivers aim to change the status quo of commercial publishing models which prioritise profits over scientific dissemination (Debat & Babini 2019;Byrne 2024). Our findings demonstrate that substantially reducing or, preferentially, removing costs would benefit all authors.…”